This book… well, this book was not what I expected. I went into it with no expectations, and somehow was still disappointed in the end. I found the world building to be phenomenal, but the characters—I didn't connect with them at all. I found the love triangle strange, and guessed most of the major plot twists. This book just wasn't for me.

love the setting

EDS is a striking fantasy-adventure with very solid world building.
There were a few lulls in the first 75% or so of the book that made me put it down for a bit, hence the 4 instead of 5 stars and it taking me almost a month to finish— but the last quarter had me on the edge of my seat and wanting more.

I would have given this book four stars for the beautiful setting and world-building alone, except for one small detail at the end of the book. I loved the cliff hanger and the set-up for the next book, but I think that one event distracted from the bigger arc of the story. It is a familiar emotional manipulation device in literature(especially juv and YA) that, frankly, I'm just tired of. I will read the next one because I'm interested to see what happens with the witches, but overall I'm feeling a bit disenchanted with the story right now.

This book was nice enough. Didn't get quite invested as I usually do with books, felt like the story was a bit basic, though it wasn't awful.

I know the main premise of this novel was to climb the mountain Raksha, and there's probably not much else you could do with that, but it didn't feel like a complete novel. I was expecting more things to happen to liven the story up and they just never came.

I liked the description of the characters climbing the mountain, felt very realistic, but there wasn't too much else to the story. And the things that were added felt a bit like an afterthought, like the author needed to justify why they were climbing.

It probably wasn't until 3/4 of the way through that these reasons became apparent and a sense of urgency was given to the characters; not just simply climbing.

Wasn't a big fan of some of the characters either. I liked Kamzin and River but we weren't given a lot of depth into them as much as I'd like.

Tem seemed a bit like a lost puppy and was there to create romantic tension but not quite achieving that, he just got in the way.

I loathed our MC Kamzin's sister, Lusha. She was awful. She constantly put down Kamzin and treat her like a child who couldn't do anything even after she has proved herself plenty capable of many things. Even when there were supposed to be tender moments between these two I didn't warm to her. A lot of Kamzin's purpose of climbing the mountain was to reach her sister and help her, I honestly did not care for Lusha and would have very much preferred for her to have stayed missing.

Later it is revealed Lusha had good reason to go on without the initial expedition crew but of course, none of this was communicated to Kamzin. So when she turns up, Lusha spends a lot of time berating her for this, even though it was her fault, to begin with.

I hate this type of family relationship. I'd rather Kamzin didn't have one, she'd be better on her own.

However, even though I've bad mouthed this book quite a lot, I didn't hate it. It just could have been better. Not sure whether I'll pick up the sequel, probably only if I can get it cheap.

But if you're looking for a great climbing story this is it, since not much else occurs except that.

I loved this book! The setting is stellar, a magical mountainous world loosely based on Tibetan culture. Beautifully written with well-paced action, this is a perfect read for winter. Would have given 5 stars if we could have avoided the obligatory YA love triangle and resultant angst, though here it is less annoying than usual.